FIRST ISSUE WITH THE PREFACE BY GEORGE SAND, ONE OF THE FEW COPIES ON HOLLANDE; A PRESENTATION COPY, inscribed to Louis Grandeau French chemist and professor at Nancy University.more...

Le Droit au vol is Nadar’s important polemic advocating the development of heavier-than-air flight. Two years before, Nadar had commissioned and experimented with the balloon Géant, whose maiden flight had carried Jules Verne (among others) but whose alarming crash landing on a subsequent flight inspired Nadar to look towards aircraft other than balloons. He founded the Société d’encouragement de la navigation aérienne au moyen du plus lourd que l’air. The relationship between Dadar and Sand was longstanding: he had dedicated his collection Quand j’étais étudiant to her in 1856, and all the well-known images of her were taken by him. She was an enthusiastic supporter of his aerial endeavours.

This is the third of three issues appearing in 1865: the first two have only Nadar’s preface, while the third also contains an enthusiastic Preface by Sand. Though the publisher referred to these as distinct editions, it is more likely that they were simply re-issues of the same sheets with modified preliminaries..see full details

First edition, first issue (before the addition of the preface by George Sand), presentation copy, Le Droit au vol is Nadar’s important polemic advocating the development of heavier-than-air flight.more...

Two years before, Nadar had commissioned and experimented with the balloon Géant, whose maiden flight had carried Jules Verne (among others) but whose alarming crash landing on a subsequent flight inspired Nadar to look towards aircraft other than balloons. He founded the Société d’encouragement de la navigation aérienne au moyen du plus lourd que l’air..see full details

First edition, one of the few copies on chine, of Nadar’s own account of his famous experiments with a Géant balloon, with author’s inscription.more...

The Géant was the most ambitious balloon ever attempted, with 220 yards of silk used in its envelope and a two-story gondola housing two cabins, a photographic studio, a print room, a lavatory and a storeroom..see full details

First edition of an important early proposal for the popularisation of air travel by powered balloon.more...

The first powered balloon flight had been achieved by Henri Giffard in 1852, but the major challenge facing early aeronautical engineers was the application of steam power to lighter-than-air craft. Named the Explorateur aerien, Farcot’s proposed craft was a fish-like airship of 15 tons carrying capacity with fins and double propellors and a 5 horsepower engine. He suggested its use for both pleasure and scientific experiment. Eugène Farcot (1830-96) was involved in the early flight experiments and was a member of the pioneering Société aérostatique et metéorologique; he rightly predicted the revolution in both travel and society which could be brought about by powered air travel, writing about it both in fiction and non-fiction and he later achieved celebrity as the pilot of the Louis-Blanc, one of the balloons which broke the Paris siege in 1870. A clock-maker by profession he was perhaps best known to his contemporaries for his sophisticated and expensive clock mechanisms. .see full details

The handbill explains the reason for this benefit flight undertaken by Green in the Great Nassau Balloon in a long newspaper extract.more...

The balloonist had made an ascent from Vauxhall on August 20th but had crashed near Gravesend (’Mr. Green received several bruises, and had a narrow escape from a dreadful death’) and his balloon (The Abion) was torn to shreds. The wreckage was displayed at Cremorne Gardens as an attraction ‘for the inspection of the curious and scientific’.see full details

The Eagle was ‘an airship designed by the Comte de Lennox in 1834 to create a direct communication link between the capitals of Europe. The first aerial ship of its kind, it was exhibited in the grounds of the Aeronautical Society in Kensington, London. It measured 160 feet long, 50 feet high and 40 feet wide, with a capacity of 98,700 cubic feet. The ship was cylindrical with conical ends and had eight paddle-shaped flaps, four on either side, which were intended to be worked backwards and forwards manually by a series of cords and chains. However, the airship proved too heavy to lift its own weight and was destroyed by onlookers after a failed ascent from the Champ de Mars, Paris, on 17th August 1834’ (Science Museum, Science and Society Picture Library online). Though several prints and pamphlets accompanied the exhibition of the Eagle, we can find no other record of this handbill advertising admission to the ‘Dock Yard’ of the Society opposite Kensington Gardens..see full details